USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 6
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Two narratives were published of Drake's voyage, "The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake," by Francis Pretty, one of the crew of Drake's vessel, written at the request of, and published by, Hakluyt, and "The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, Collected out of the Notes of Mr. Francis Fletcher, Preacher in his Employment, and Compared with Divers other Notes, who went on the same Voyage." How quaint the titles ! The first of these histories makes the forty- third degree north the extreme limit of Drake's voyage ; the lat- ter claims the forty-eighth degree. Little did the actors and recorders of this buccaneering cruise ever imagine that their sayings and doings would one day furnish matter for grave
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diplomatic discussion, settling boundaries for a people yet un- born, and nearly bring about a war between two great nations.
What a glamour of romance surrounds these early voyages, whether of England or Spain ! going out in their little, poorly equipped vessels, often mere shells, rotten hulks ; for a writer of his time speaks of Magellan's ships as being " old, worn, and tender as butter in the ribs, so that he would not even wish to voyage to the Canaries in them." Yet they dare the same stormy seas to which we commit our iron-clads and " ocean greyhounds," seas then unknown, with no chart to guide and no certain port of destination-sometimes to succeed, yet again to be swallowed up by the deep, leaving no trace upon the un- traversed waters, or, perchance, returning with crews eaten up by scurvy and reduced to rags. Taking the vessels in which they embarked and the dangers to be encountered, as compared with our own time, into consideration, the world has never seen and never again will see such mariners. Yet they had their rewards. Their names go down the ages entwined with the story of the lands they sought and found, and even in their own day met with the reception so easily accorded to successful adven- ture-as in the case of Cavendish, who returns from his cruise to astonish the port from whence he sailed with sailors landing in all the bravery of silk attire from a ship whose sails were of damask and her topmasts covered with cloth-of-gold.
By way of postscript to the story of Drake's voyage, history tells us that Elizabeth, with her customary political caution, hesitated to endorse his acts of rapine on the South American coasts, fearing that her recognition might lead to complications with Spain. She did so finally, however, honoring him with knighthood, and heartily approving his every act. She, more- over, directed the preservation of his cruiser, the Golden Hind, " that it might remain a monument of his own and his country's glory."
Encouraged by the success of Drake, another English free- booter, Thomas Cavendish, with three small vessels, followed in his footsteps. He appears to have commanded the Alabama of his time, sinking and burning as he goes no less than nineteen ships, and returns in triumph, yet with nothing of discovery to interest us.
We now find the increasing commerce between Mexico and
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the Philippines demanding a port of refuge on the California coast in a higher northern latitude. Correct maps and a greater knowledge of our Northwest shores became a nautical necessity not only to these navigators, but those engaged in traffic with the West Indies. In 1595, therefore, we learn that Philip the Second ordered Count de Monterey, the Viceroy of Mexico, to explore and seize California, and accurately survey its coasts from Acapulco to Cape Mendocino. Sebastian Vizcaino was selected for the service. In the spring of 1596 three vessels under his command sailed from Acapulco, crossed the Gulf of California, and attempted to establish a settlement, to which Vizcaino gave the name of La Paz, in compliment to the natives for their peaceful reception of him. Within a year La Paz was abandoned and the little fleet returned to Acapulco.
" When Philip the Third, who ascended the throne of Spain," says Evans, "in 1598, learned of this result, he issued peremptory orders on the 27th of September, 1599, for the sur- vey of the coast and ocean side of the peninsula of ^ nia. His viceroy entered zealously upon this duty. preparations were upon the grandest scale of any ever at- tempted in Mexico. All the requisites for its successful accom- plishment were liberally supplied. Pilots, priests, draughts- men, and soldiers were engaged, in addition to full crews of selected seamen. Friar Antonio, chaplain to the admiral and journalist of the expedition, pronounced it the most enlightened corps ever raised in New Spain. To Vizcaino was assigned the command, and upon him was conferred the title and office of Captain-General of California. The fleet consisted of three large ships, the San Diego, San Tomas, and Tres Reyes. To Admiral de Corvan was entrusted the navigation. The fleet, which set sail from Acapulco June 2d, 1602, commenced the survey of the coast at Cape San Lucas. On the 10th of November San Diego was surveyed. On the 16th of December was discovered and named the Bay of Monterey, in honor of the viceroy. From Monterey one of the ships was sent back to Acapulco ; eighteen days later the other two vessels sailed north. Twelve days after leaving Monterey the San Diego passed San Francisco ; but the smaller vessel having separated, the ship returned to that port to await the arrival of her consort. On the 12th of January, 1603, the ships reached Mendocino. Scurvy had made sad havoc
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with the crews. There were but six able to be on deck. On the 19th a high headland and snow-capped mountain in latitude 42° north were discovered. It being the eve of St. Sebastian, Viz- caino gave to this cape the name Blanco de San Sebastian (the Cape Orford of Vancouver), being the highest point reached by his ship. He then turned southward, coasting inshore, observ- ing the land, and arrived at Acapulco March 21st, 1603. The smaller vessel, commanded by Antonio Flores, with Martin de Aguilar as pilot, doubled Cape Mendocino and continued north to the mouth of a river forty-three degrees north -- farther north than Monterey's instructions had warranted ; then with a crew hopelessly disabled by that bane of all ancient mariners, the scurvy, Flores turned southward to Acapulco."
Disappointment of some sort seems to have accompanied almost every expedition of these old-time explorers. We find Vizcaino, on his return to Mexico, vainly endeavoring to induce the viceroy to establish colonies. Failing here, he goes to Spain, and obtains from Philip the Third a grant of those regions, with privilege to establish colonies ; but his death in 1609 defeats his project.
With this expedition, Spanish exploration in the Pacific was for the time discontinued-not from any change of policy, but as a natural result of the condition of affairs. New Spain was in direct communication with the Spanish East Indies. By the isolation of Mexico, Spain was more likely to retain her East Indian trade without interruption. The opening of a north- eastern passage, should such a one be discovered, would but open a door to the entrance of piratical cruisers-the Drakes and Cavendishes-to prey upon Spanish commerce in the Pacific. It was against her best interests to open a more direct path for the ingress of her enemies to Spain ; therefore the discovery of the northwest passage ceased to be a desideratum as a promoter of Pacific commerce. But, nevertheless, we see the tidal wave of exploration, urged on by various and ofttimes conflicting influences, gradually gaining both in power and nearness, and already touching the coasts on which we dwell.
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CHAPTER VI.
DUTCH AND RUSSIAN VOYAGES OF EXPLORATION TO THE NORTII- WEST COAST.
WE now come to the year 1613, in which the Dutch enter the field of Pacific exploration.
Under the name of the Southern Company, Isaac Le Maire, a wealthy citizen of Amsterdam, associates himself with an ex- perienced navigator, a certain Captain William Schouten-Jacob Le Maire, a son of the merchant just mentioned, accompanying him as supercargo-and obtains from the States-General of Hol- land the right to make voyages of discovery. With the usual secretiveness of that people and time, their object and destina- tion were concealed from other merchants, and even from the sea- men they employed. Both vessels reached Port Desire in safety, but in careening, the Hoorne-named after the birthplace of Schouten-was burned, leaving only her consort, the Een- dracht, to pursue the voyage. Sailing southward on January 13th, 1816, they pass, on the 30th, the extreme southern point of South America, to which Schouten, who seems devotedly attached to his native town, gives, as he did to his lost ship, the name of Cape Hoorne-since shortened to Horn-having already given to the easternmost point of Terra del Fuego the name of Staten Land. Pity that he had not called his cape the Cape of Storms, which is still, and ever will be, the terror of the navi- gator, the abode of tempests and the birthplace of gales. Run- ning south as far as 59° 30' he stands again to the northwest, passing, on February 12th, the western outlet of the Strait of Magellan, and thus becoming the first known mariner to " double Cape Horn." A new route to the Pacific has been discovered, adding an additional menace to Spanish superiority on its west- ern coasts, whose settlements are no longer exempt from the hostile visits of armed cruisers, and may well look for a renewal of such attacks as those of Cavendish and Drake.
Russia, too, is becoming interested in the geography of our northwestern shores, and is about to dare the bitter breezes and
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icy gales of the Arctic seas as she feels her way by slow degrees, walking blindly yet surely to her goal, a lodgment for her set- tlements upon our coasts. The Empress Catherine, newly come to the throne, sends out Behring, from whose orders we extract the following directions :
" To examine the coasts to the north and toward the east, to see if they were not contiguous with America, since their end was not known."
He sails accordingly on July 14th, 1728, and on August 8th following reaches the latitude of 64° 30' north, when eight men come rowing toward his ship in " a leather boat." They tell him of a mainland at no great distance extending toward the west. Having gained the latitude of 67º 18' and " seeing no land to the east, neither to the north," he regards his instruc- tions as fulfilled, and returns to the river Kamtchatka, fully sat- isfied that Asia and America are separate. Yet he notices that the waves are not heavy enough to indicate an open sea, and says that " great fir-trees," possibly borne by the outwash of our own Puget Sound, "are seen swimming in the sea," such trees as do not grow in Kamtchatka. So he turns backward, taking little by his first enterprise save the naming of the chan- nel of the sea, separating the two continents, through which he sailed, and still known as Behring's Strait.
A Javanese junk, storm-driven and stranded, went to pieces upon the inhospitable coast of Kamtchatka July 8th, 1729, and her crew, with the exception of two, were killed by the Cos- sacks. The survivors made their way to St. Petersburg, and straightway the fact is established of a water route through the Pacific to Java. Other expeditions in the direction of Russian conquest and exploration in these seas were undertaken about this time -- led, strangely enough, by a colonel of Cossacks and a captain of Russian dragoons -- but ended in shipwreck, defeat, and failure.
On April 17th, 1732, the Russian Government again issues orders " to make voyages as well eastward to the continent of America as southward to Japan, and to discover, if possible, at the same time, through the frozen sea the north passage which had been so frequently attempted by the English and the Dutch."
Behring, now a commander, with two other captains associ- ated with him, accordingly set sail, making his second attempt
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in 1741. Müller, the historian, to whom we are indebted as the conservator of the incidents of these voyages, volunteered to accompany this expedition, to describe the civil history of the regions to be visited and the manners, customs, etc., of their people. They took with them also a scientific corps. Delayed by the building and fitting out of their ships, they finally sailed from their winter quarters in Awatscha Bay, June 4th, 1741, but on the 20th of the same month we find them separated by a gale and unable to rejoin. They make their way, therefore, sepa- rately to the eastward, to gain the American coast. Behring, after a variety of adventures, sights our continent in latitude 58° 28' north, his consort having reached the same coast three days previous in 56°, after an experience which, though a mys- tery at the time, seems afterward to have been partially ex- plained. Desiring to obtain water, and also to examine the country, the captain sent a boat with his mate and ten well- armed men to explore the coast ; they rowed on until they dis- appeared behind a small cape, from whence they did not return. After the lapse of several days, supposing them to be disabled, their commander dispatches the boatswain with six men, includ- ing carpenters and materials to make repairs should such be required. They too disappeared. The next day two native canoes were seen paddling toward the ship. The crew, expect- ing the return of their missing companions, gathered on the deck to receive them ; when the Indians, as they prove to be, seeing the Russians so numerous, come to a standstill, cease rowing, and standing up in their canoes, cry out, " Agai, agai !" and then resuming their paddles, make hurriedly for the shore. The captain, whose small boats were now expended, dared not approach the breakers with his ship, and, a storm arising, was compelled to bear away, leaving his lost men to their fate, yet, withal, thankful to escape from the perils of this dangerous shore. While nothing was ever definitely known of the particu- lars of their separation, the Russian Minister at Washington in 1822, in a dispatch to the American Secretary of State, says that in 1789 the Spanish ship Don Carlos found in latitude 58° 59' Russian establishments to the number of eight, consisting in the whole of twenty families and four hundred and sixty two indi- viduals. These were the descendants of the men supposed to have perished.
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It might be painfully interesting to dwell upon the sufferings of this ill-starred expedition, but space forbids. We conclude our extracts with Müller's account of the sorrowful ending of Behring, their gallant commander, who was carried ashore on a litter, on their arrival at the bleak and desolate island where they were compelled to make their winter quarters. He says :
" He daily grew worse ; the place yielded little of antiscor- butic quality, and the herbage that grew on the island was hidden under the snow. The commodore died on the 8th of December. It is a subject of regret that his life ended so miserably. It may be said that he was almost buried while alive, for the sand rolled down continuously from the side of the cave or pit in which he lay and covered his feet. He at last would not suffer it to be removed, saying he felt warmth in it when he felt none in other parts of his body ; and the sand thus gradually increased upon him till he was more than half covered, so that when he was dead it was necessary to unearth him to inter him in a proper manner."
In honor of Behring, the island where his remains were en- tombed bears his name. It is at once his grave and his monu- ment.
His ship, the St. Paul, as if sympathizing with the final ship- wreck and loss of her brave and gallant commander, went to pieces ; but the material being carefully preserved by the sur- vivors, who were destined to bury no less than thirty more of their number before quitting this dreadful locality, was recon- structed into a smaller vessel, in which they finally made their escape, reaching home after an absence of fifteen months and the endurance of infinite hardships. But there is no cloud, we are told, which does not wear a silver lining, no lane without some turning. And it was even so in this case; for to this seemingly disastrous voyage is due the Russian fur trade with its large establishments on the Northwest coast. It came about in this wise : Evans tells us, " that, compelled while sojourning on Behring's Island to subsist on sea animals which there abound- ed, and to use the skins as a protection against the rigors of the climate, such skins as were preserved and brought by them to Kamtchatka were purchased by the Siberians with great avidity at handsome prices ; thus the misfortunes and necessities of Behring's crew demonstrated that the North Pacific coast was
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prolific in most valuable furs." So out of this evil a higher power eliminates good. There is, indeed, hardly any crucible of human suffering, either in the unit or the aggregate, which does not discover some residuum of gain or process of purifica- tion in its results-a good most unlooked for, because entirely unsuspected.
CHAPTER VII.
REVIVAL OF SPANISH INTEREST IN NORTHWEST DISCOVERY.
" The blazoned banner of old Spain Once more assaults the seas, As on these misty shores again She gives it to the breeze ; Her greed of gold and lust of dower Entwining cross and sword,
From England's might and Russia's power Her northwest claims would ward."
-BREWERTON.
WITH the missions now established, and growing favorably under the fostering care of the good fathers in California, we have nothing to do, but the renewal of Spanish exploration in the Pacific during the last quarter of the eighteenth century does interest us, coming within and at various points touching the limits of our Northwest coast. The renewal of this maritime energy on the part of Spain was due to a variety of causes, but its principal object was to strengthen and enforce her claims to that which she already held by right of discovery. Her jealousy of encroachment had already nearly involved her in war with Great Britain, a conflict only averted by the good offices of France, which nation, though declining an offensive alliance with Spain against England, offered her services as a mediator, with happy result. Spain, therefore, determines to make her claim to possession on the Northwest coast so strong as to be in- disputable by an actual occupancy. To pave the way to this she dispatches the sloop of war, Santiago, from St. Blas, in January, 1774, under Lieutenant Juan Perez. His orders are to sail northward to 60° ; from there survey the coast southward to Monterey ; to land at convenient places and take possession for Spain. In July he makes the land in 54° north (Queen Charlotte's Island), and names the point by adding another saint to our coast calendar-Cape Santa Margarita-the Cape Dixon of to-day. Scurvy, the bane of old-time navigation, attacking his crew, he turns southward, coasts the shore, lands,
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and trades with the natives till driven seaward by a storm. He makes land again in August in 48° 49', and enters a bay-the present Nootka Sound. Sailing southward, his pilot sees, in 47º 47', a snow-capped peak. Perez names it the Mountain of Santa Rosalia, but we know it as Mount Olympus. He then determines the true latitude of Cape Mendocino, and returns to Monterey. This voyage is important, as from it the Spanish claim the discovery of the present Strait of Fuca and the Cape Flattery of Drake-known on their charts as the Strait and Cape Martinez. They, however, failed to publish these discov- eries, thereby relegating to others the honors justly due to Perez. Another expedition follows. The Santiago and Sonora, on June 10th, in latitude 41° 10', anchor in a roadstead they name Port Trinidad. Here they take possession and erect a cross, still visible and seen by Vancouver in 1793. They look for the strait laid down on Bellin's charts as lying between 47º and 48°, but fail to find it. On July 14th an incident occurs of a most serious nature. While in latitude 47° 20' the only boat of the Sonora is sent on shore for water, manned by a crew of seven men ; the men, though well armed, are outnumbered by the natives and all murdered. The Sonora herself barely escapes, being surrounded by the savages in their canoes, who make repeated assaults and are beaten off with difficulty. Whether this was a wanton act of hostility, or brought about by some aggression of the boat's crew, will never be known. If the latter, they paid dearly for it. To this place they gave the name-a very pertinent one this time-of Punta de Martires (Point of Martyrs, now Point Grenville), and to the island near, Isla de Dolores (the Island of Sorrows). It is worthy of notice that Captain Berkley, twelve years later, in the Imperial Eagle, met with a similar experience with a boat's crew, and renamed it Destruction Island in consequence. The loss of his men, added to the breaking out of the scurvy and the generally unsea- worthy condition of the Sonora, induced a desire on the part of their commander, Heceta, to return to Monterey ; but being over- ruled in a council of his officers, the vessels headed northward again. A storm, however, soon separated the ships, when Heceta, on the Sonora, returned homeward, leaving his consort, the Bodega, to continue the voyage northward. Heceta first makes the land on his return in 49° 30'. Between 46° 10' and
LA Lov
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46° 9' he " discovers a great bay, the head of which he could not recognize. From the currents and eddies setting him seaward he could not enter, but believed it to be the mouth of some great river or passage to another sea." At night the force of the cur- rent driving him far from the coast, he is unable to make further examination. He names the northern cape San Roque and the southern cape Frondosa ; the bay, Eusenda de la Roque, and the supposed river, Rio de San Roque. He reaches Monterey on August 30th with two thirds of his crew disabled by the scurvy.
. " Bodega and Maurelle," says Evans, "after parting from Heceta, pushed out to sea, first reaching the land in 56° north. Heading east, they discover a mountain in 57º 2', which they name San Jacinto (the Mount Edgecombe of Cook)." Other discoveries and consequent declarations of possession in the name of His Most Catholic Majesty follow. On October 3d a bay is located in 38°, on which Bodega bestows his own name. He surveys it and returns to Monterey, and thence to San Blas, after a cruise of eight months. We learn that upon the results of this voyage being known in Madrid, they were regarded as of the greatest importance. Orders were dispatched to have the survey of the American coast completed by the same officers.
A new expedition was accordingly sent out, whose results may be summed up, as stated by Fleurieu :
" They might have remained at San Blas without knowledge in geography having sustained any loss by their inaction."
Evans tells us that this voyage is notable as the last made for several years by the Spanish from Mexico to the northern coasts of America. War being declared between Spain and Great Britain in 1779 for the time suspended operations.
It is almost a relief to know that it is so. One grows weary of this greed of exploration, this mania for the acquisition of territory which, once seen and taken possession of with fantastic ceremonies, halts at the door and makes no earnest effort to peo- ple and redeem. One wearies of bombast and saintly names, and longs, as for a line from home, for something of manly, good old English both in nomenclature and colonization.
CHAPTER VIII.
BRITISH EXPLORATIONS ON THE NORTHWEST COAST.
Up to the early summer of the year 1776, made memorable in the annals of time by the assertion of American independence, Great Britain had taken little interest in northwestern discov- eries. The piratical visits of Drake and Cavendish toward the close of the sixteenth century added nothing of consequence to the world's knowledge of Puget Sound or the Northwest coasts. The object of their adventure was plunder on the high seas or robbery on shore. Exploration, save so far as they had a con- venient retreat (a safe way home to discover), was an incident, or, one should rather call it, accident of their voyages. Now, however, England, grown envious or possibly alarmed by the progress made in this direction by rival nations, determines to enter the field in earnest. She equips two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery-twin names which well foreshadow the work they were to do-and places them under the command of that since world-renowned and most expert geographer, Captain James Cook. His orders take him via the Cape of Good Hope, New Zealand, and Otaheite directly for the Pacific coast of North America. They run as follows, and, as it will be per- ceived by those who read between the lines, contain a hidden meaning. Mark the name of "New Albion," given by Drake, their own representative, and the tacit ignoring of Spanish claims where they can safely do so :
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